Duel of Shadows by B. A. Lovejoy

Author:B. A. Lovejoy [Lovejoy, B. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

It was a sad, seldom discussed fact of the world that, from the moment of adulthood onward, one might have to spend the majority of their life attempting to tell the difference between fact and fiction.

To know when one was lying to them, to be aware of when one was being conned, to sniff out even the slightest indiscretion—this was one of the most important skills for a person to have, and one that I believed myself to be a master of.

But it was at that moment, as I stared at James, that I found my faith in myself wavered. That I struggled to hear the voice in the back of my head, the one that was always sensible and logical and just so happened to sound a little bit like Aunt Miriam and found myself lost in the midst of emotion.

Because well, what he was inferring sounded so farfetched, I found myself struggling the moment I met his gaze. His eyes wide, his face pleading, his hand outstretched to me⁠—

It made me think of another time, another place, one where I had been the one holding my hand out to him.

“Supposing what you are claiming is true, what would you have made a deal for?” I asked, my voice cracking as I said it, but I already knew.

“I just wanted to live, Edie,” James explained. “To be out of that place, to feel the sun on my face. It had been over a month since Mr. Francis had caught me at that door, grinning as he passed me by, and every single day had been more painful than the last, every breath shallower, every hope and dream I’d ever had was slipping right from my hands,” James said quietly. And thus, the story began, James’s eyes staying upon me, and his skin growing pale as he spoke of the white cliffs and the sanitarium by the sea.

“He didn’t come,” James began, as if that was the first and foremost fact that he needed me to understand. “He rarely comes in person, unless he thinks you are someone important, or of great enough influence. He’s a bit like a politician in that regard, never wanting to deal with anything he deems too little or unimportant, only showing up when he’s guaranteed money in his pocket and friends of a higher social standing. He didn’t want anything to do with me until he realized I was smart, and by then, he already had the contract in hand. He showed up in my lodgings, saying it was such a shame that I had gotten ill, but he really wasn’t surprised.”

James shook his head, seeming disgusted with the situation as he fell back and finally reclined against the wall, his arms folded at his chest and his nose wrinkled as he thought back on it all, the frustration more than evident in his demeanor as he took a large breath.

I found myself checking the alley behind him, if only to make sure that the two of us were completely alone before he began.

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